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Thread: Micra rentals

  1. #1
    Administrator MetroMPG's Avatar
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    Micra rentals

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    As mentioned in the "Micras spotted in the wild" thread, the last Micra I saw turned out to be a rental car.

    This one came from the local Enterprise office, so I dropped by to see if they had any others on the lot. No more Micras, but there were a couple of Versa hatches (previous body style) and a new Versa Note. You think Enterprise has an arrangement with Nissan?

    Which got me thinking...

    Isn't it a little surprising that a brand new model would be going into rental fleets? I thought car companies tried to avoid this because the profit margins in fleet sales are exceedingly thin, and the extra supply in the used car market drives prices down (rentals only keep the car for about a year).

    I'm sure I've read that some car companies have a policy of not selling to fleets for these reasons.

    Another reason for fleet sales is to goose sales numbers.... something Nissan shouldn't have to do with a brand new model.

    I checked Enterprise's Canadian website to see what they listed for cars... ironically, they have a picture of the Chevy Spark in their "economy" segment. To be replaced by the Micra??


        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra S manual: 5.0 L/100 km ... 56.5 mpg (Imp) ... 20.0 km/L ... 47.0 mpg (US) ...


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    Senior Member AlphaMicra's Avatar
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    In Europe, where the Micra has been well established for a very long time, it's a common car for rental companies to provide customers with. http://www.carhirewestlondon.com/nissan-micra-rental

    I believe Nissan Canada wants the Micra to be a "Sales numbers" car. They already know the profit margins on the Micra are going to be extremely slim, so they need to sell them in sufficiently high volumes to make them viable. They already charged out of the gate advertising "The cheapest new car in Canada."

    This explains why they seemed oblivious to the true marketing potential of this car. There's no reason for Nissan not to sell the Micra to rental car companies, nor do they care about the resale value of a car they're barely making a profit on. They want to get as many people into a Nissan as they possibly can. The economy is still unstable, as is the price of gas, and Nissan wants to capture as much market share as they can right now.

    The Micra will win people over to Nissan. I had a short term contract job in North Carolina in 1997, the company I worked for flew me down and put me in a rental car that turned out to be the Nissan Altima. After that trip, I was set on buying a new Nissan Altima. That was, until we bought a house and had a baby on the way. Another rental on another project was a Dodge Neon; I would not have considered a Dodge of any kind, but that rental changed my mind. I would have bought an Altima, but my budget put me in the Dodge Neon category; a decision based on driving rental cars.

    Fleet and rental companies are going to make up a significant portion of Micras on the road in 2015, I think. It's worked out for them in the rest of the world, so maybe they know what they're doing.

    In our culture obsessed with absurd excess, the Nissan Micra is my counterculture car of choice.
    Be sure to visit my blog at mymicra.com!

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra SV manual: 6.4 L/100 km ... 44.3 mpg (Imp) ... 15.7 km/L ... 36.9 mpg (US) ...


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    Senior Member Howie's Avatar
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    Its not unusal. I know some rental companies order them in lots of 20 and get discounts up the wazoo. So for 12k, they buy a bunch, run them for 40-60k then resell them for a few grand less. The less you put out for the car initially, the more profit you can gain from the same 40k.

    Plus, the long span between services saves them money.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra S automatic: 7.9 L/100 km ... 35.7 mpg (Imp) ... 12.6 km/L ... 29.7 mpg (US) ...


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    Administrator MetroMPG's Avatar
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    Oh yeah, it definitely makes sense if you're a rental co to get cars that are a good value. Micra certainly qualifies.

    I guess I've just read a bunch of articles about the practice that gave me the impression that going for fleet sales = generally bad (from the car company's perspective). Depends on the proportion of your total sales, I suppose. And we don't know what the number is.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra S manual: 5.0 L/100 km ... 56.5 mpg (Imp) ... 20.0 km/L ... 47.0 mpg (US) ...


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    Senior Member Howie's Avatar
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    Thats right. Fleet sales are great if your talking about a ton of vehicles. Like 100+ units. But less then that, the amount of profit you make off each vehicle as opposed to having them "guaranteed sold" changes.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra S automatic: 7.9 L/100 km ... 35.7 mpg (Imp) ... 12.6 km/L ... 29.7 mpg (US) ...


  6. #6
    Administrator MetroMPG's Avatar
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    Another rental tidbit. kojack rented one from National:

    Quote Originally Posted by kojack View Post
    They are replacing Chevy spark with the micra.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra S manual: 5.0 L/100 km ... 56.5 mpg (Imp) ... 20.0 km/L ... 47.0 mpg (US) ...


  7. #7
    Administrator MetroMPG's Avatar
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    Dead Kia = Micra rental = Darin drives a Micra again

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    The last 3 Micras I've seen in my immediate neck of the woods have been rentals. 2 of them were being rented by friends while their cars were in the shop - including the one pictured above.

    The last 3 I've seen have all been grey SV's like this one, which my friend rented in Ottawa because her 5 year-old Kia's check-engine light came on, and it wouldn't go faster than 40 km/h!

    Bad luck for her! Good luck for me -- I got a chance to take it for a spin this weekend. It was nice to refresh my Micra memory.

    That's the first time I've been behind the wheel since summer last year when Nissan loaned me a base S for a couple of weeks.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra S manual: 5.0 L/100 km ... 56.5 mpg (Imp) ... 20.0 km/L ... 47.0 mpg (US) ...


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    Senior Member L1ghtninchris's Avatar
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    Remember Part Source is another company across the GTA (maybe even across Canada? ) that also uses the micra in their fleet of delivery vehicles replacing the (i wanna say they used nissan versa note hatchbacks) but i could be wrong.

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    Administrator MetroMPG's Avatar
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    Yeah, my local Parts Source has a red Micra S auto. I think they might have had a Yaris before.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra S manual: 5.0 L/100 km ... 56.5 mpg (Imp) ... 20.0 km/L ... 47.0 mpg (US) ...


  10. #10
    Administrator MetroMPG's Avatar
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    Nissan LOVES selling to fleets

    Thread revival!

    This chart recently came out that shows how many cars Nissan sells to rental fleets in the U.S.:

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    Look at all those Versas!! No wonder it's the best-selling car in its segment in the States! 35% of total deliveries went into fleets! 38,000 fleet Versas in less than a year -- that's more than 4x the number of all Micras sold in Canada in 2017.

    Nissan loves fleet sales:

    According to Polk/IHS Automotive, of the top 10 rental vehicles to enter fleets in 2017, four of them were Nissans. The following numbers are good through the end of October:
    Source: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...ericas-fleets/

    I wish we had Canadian numbers for the Micra.


        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra S manual: 5.0 L/100 km ... 56.5 mpg (Imp) ... 20.0 km/L ... 47.0 mpg (US) ...


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